Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno 1)
Page 10“I was just telling Gabriel that I’m going to cook for him tonight.
Come home with us.”
Julia’s eyes grew wide and round, and she looked mildly panicked.
Gabriel cleared his throat. “Ah, Rachel, I’m sure Miss Mitchell is busy and has other plans.”
Julia caught his look, pregnant with meaning, and began to nod obediently.
Rachel whirled around. “Miss Mitchell? She was my best friend in high school, and we’ve been friends ever since. Didn’t you know that?”
Rachel searched her brother’s eyes and saw nothing, not even a glimmer of recognition. “I forgot that you two never met. Regardless, your attitude is a bit much. Do me a favor and lose the pole from your keister.”
She whirled back around to see Julia swallowing her tongue. Or at least that’s what it looked like she was doing, as she almost turned blue and began to cough.
“We should meet for lunch, instead. I’m sure The Profess — your brother wants you all to himself.” Julia forced a smile, conscious of the fact that Gabriel was staring daggers at her over his sister’s head.
Rachel narrowed her eyes. “He’s Gabriel, Julia. What’s wrong with you two?”
“She’s my student. There are rules.” Gabriel’s tone began to grow increasingly cool and unfriendly.
“She’s my friend, Gabriel. And I say screw the rules!” Rachel looked between her brother and her friend and saw Julia gazing down at her shoes and Gabriel scowling at both of them. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“Gabriel Owen Emerson, have you been an ass to Julia?”
Julia smothered a laugh, and Gabriel frowned. Despite their collective silence, either reaction would have been enough to tell Rachel that her suspicion was correct.
“Well, I don’t have time for this nonsense. You two will just have to kiss and make up. I’m only here for a week, and I expect to spend lots of time with both of you.” Rachel grabbed each of them by the arm and dragged them toward the Jaguar.
Rachel Clark was nothing like her adopted brother. She was an assistant to the press secretary of the Mayor of Philadelphia, which sounded important but really wasn’t. In fact, the majority of her days were spent either scouring local newspapers for any mention of the mayor or photocopying press releases. On especially auspicious days, she was permitted to update the mayor’s blog. In appearance, Rachel was fine-featured and willowy, with straight, long hair, freckles, and gray eyes. She was also very outgoing, which sometimes exasperated her much older, introverted brother.
Gabriel kept his lips firmly pressed together during the drive to his condo, as the two women chatted in the back seat like a couple of high school girls, giggling and reminiscing. He didn’t relish spending an evening with both of them, but his sister was suffering at the moment, and he wasn’t about to do anything to add to her suffering.
Soon the two-thirds-happy trio was riding the elevator in the Manulife Building, an impressive luxury high-rise on Bloor Street. As they exited the elevator on the top floor, Julia noticed that there were only four doors opening onto the hallway.
Wow. These apartments must be huge.
Once Julia entered the condo and followed Gabriel through the small foyer into the central and open-concept living space, she realized why his sensibilities had been so offended by her studio. His spacious apartment boasted floor-to-ceiling windows, which were hung with dramatic ice-blue silk curtains, facing south to the cn tower and over Lake Ontario. The floors were a rich, dark hardwood, with Persian rugs adorning them, and the walls were light taupe.
His living room furniture looked as if it had been chosen from Res-toration Hardware, and ranged from a large chocolate brown leather sofa with nail-head detailing, to two matching leather club chairs, to a red velvet, wing-backed chair that was angled next to the fireplace.
Julia looked at the lovely red chair and its matching ottoman with more than a little envy. It would be the perfect place to sit on a rainy day while sipping a cup of tea and reading a favorite book. Not that she would ever have that opportunity.
The fireplace had a gas insert, and Gabriel had suspended a flat plasma screen television over the mantle as if it were a painting. Various pieces of art, oil paintings, and sculpture adorned the walls and some of the furniture. He had museum quality pieces of Roman glass and Greek pottery interspersed with reproductions of famous sculptures, including the Venus de Milo and Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne. In fact, thought Julia, he had entirely too many sculptures, all of them female nudes.
In the next room, near the large and formal dining table, stood an ebony sideboard. Julia took in its richness and expanse appreciatively. It was bare except for a large crystal vase and an ornate silver tray that held various decanters containing amber-colored liquids, an ice chest, and old-fashioned crystal glasses. Silver ice tongs completed the vignette, angled across a stack of small, square white linen napkins with the initials G. O. E. embroidered on them. Julia giggled to herself when she envisioned what those napkins would look like if Gabriel’s last name had been, say, Davidson.
In short, Professor Emerson’s apartment was aesthetically pleasing, tastefully decorated, scrupulously clean, intentionally masculine, and very, very cold. Julia wondered briefly if he ever brought women home to this frigid space, then she tried very hard not to imagine what he would do to them when he brought them here. Perhaps he had a room for such purposes so that they wouldn’t soil his precious things…She ran a hand across the cold, black granite countertop in the kitchen and shivered.
Rachel immediately preheated the oven and washed her hands. “Gabriel, why don’t you give Julia the grand tour while I start dinner.”
Julia clutched her knapsack to her chest, unwilling to put so offensive an item on his furniture. Gabriel took it out of her hands and placed it on the floor under a smal table. She smiled at him in appreciation, and he found himself smiling back at her.
He didn’t want to give Miss Mitchell a tour of his condo. And he certainly wasn’t about to show her his bedroom and the black-and-white photos that adorned those walls. But with Rachel there to remind him of his obligations as a (reluctantly) gracious host, he didn’t see a way out of giving a tour of the guest rooms.
So that is how he came to be standing in his study, which had been a third bedroom, but which he had converted into a comfortable working library by installing dark wood bookshelves from floor to ceiling. Julia gaped at all the books — titles new and rare and mostly hard-covered in Italian, Latin, French, English, and German. The room, like the rest of his condo, was intentionally masculine. The same ice-blue curtains, the same dark hardwood, with an antique Persian rug centered in the room.
Gabriel stood behind his ornate and rather large oak desk. “Do you like it?” He gestured to his library.
“Very much,” said Julia. “It’s beautiful.”
She reached out to stroke the velvet of the red wing-back, the mate to the chair she had admired by the fireplace. But she didn’t think he’d like that. Professor Emerson was the sort to object to his things being handled, and so she stopped herself just in time. He’d probably snap at her for soiling it with her grubby little fingers.
“That’s my favorite chair. It’s quite comfortable, if you’d like to try it.”
Julia smiled as if he’d given her a present and eagerly sat in it, pulling her legs under herself and curling up like a kitten.
“Here’s something for you to see.” He waved her over, and she came to stand in front of his desk.
He opened a drawer and withdrew two sets of white cotton gloves.
“Put these on.” He handed her a pair, which she accepted mutely, copying his movements as he pulled them over his long fingers.
“This is one of my most precious possessions,” he explained, withdrawing a large wooden box from a now unlocked drawer. He placed the box on his desk, and for one horrible moment Julia was afraid of what she might find inside.
A shrunken head? Perhaps from a former graduate student?
He opened the box and withdrew what looked like a book. Opening it, it became evident that it was a series of stiff paper sleeves accordioned together, each labeled in Italian. He leafed through it carefully until he found the sleeve he wanted, then he removed something, cradling it in both hands.
Julia gasped at the sight of it.
Gabriel smiled with pride. “Do you recognize it?”
“Of course! But this…this can’t be the original?”
He chuckled softly. “Sadly, no. That would be beyond the reach of my small fortune. The originals date from the fifteenth century. These are reproductions, from the sixteenth century.”